366 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



plied by such metaphorical expressions, and they are 

 almost necessary for brevity," 



Mr. Darwin certainly does speak of natural selection 

 " acting," " accumulating," " operating " ; and if " every- 

 one knew what was meant and implied by this meta- 

 phorical expression," as they now do, or think they do, 

 in the case of the attraction of gravity, there might be 

 less ground of complaint ; but the expression was known 

 to very few at the time Mr. Darwin introduced it, and 

 was used with so much ambiguity, and with so little to 

 protect the reader from falling into the error of suppos- 

 ing that it was the cause of the modifications which we 

 see around us, that we had a just right to complain, 

 even in the first instance ; much more should we do so 

 on the score of the retention of the expression when a 

 more accurate one had been found. 



If the " survival of the fittest " had been used, to*^! 

 the total excision of " natural selection " from every 

 page in Mr. Darwin's book — it would have been easily 

 seen that " the survival of the fittest " is no more a cause 

 of modification, and hence can give no more explanation 

 concerning the origin of species, than the fact of a number 

 of competitors in a race failing to run the whole coursCj 

 or to run it as quickly as the winner, can explain how 

 the winner came to have good legs and lungs. Accord- 

 ing to Lamarck, the winner will have got these by 

 means of sense of need, and consequent practice and 

 training, on his own part, and on that of his forefathers; 

 according to Mr. Darwin, the " most important means " 

 of his getting them is his " happening " to be born with 

 them, coupled with the fact that his uncles and aunts for 



